Promise of a Sun
by Akihikari
Summary: "You've really never seen the sun rise?" Dave takes it upon himself to remedy the situation and Karkat is just confused. Ridiculous amounts of fluff because I can. Also outdoor sex because I can.
1. Rising Dawn

_Promise of a Sun_

oOo

**AN: What is context? -_- I'm just assuming this happens in a dream bubble. Bear with me.**

oOo

"Look, it's coming up."

"I can see just fine, thanks", Karkat muttered, but with no real heat beneath his words; he stared determinedly at the orange disc making its way above the horizon, full and ripe like a summer fruit, flinging out storms of color in its wake as it rose.

Dave chuckled under his breath. "You've really never seen the sun rise?"

"Hey asshole, not everybody lives on a planet orbiting a sun that doesn't burn your fucking eyes out when you so much as step outdoors during the day."

"Right", Dave replied, his tone surprisingly conciliatory. "Human privilege, I guess." Karkat was still forcing his eyes to stay on the Earth sun, rather than darting away on reflex after so many years on Alternia, and did not catch the little ripple in the human's voice as he continued, "I guess it's better this way anyway."

"Of course it's better this way, you fucker—unless you're blinded by your moon or some shit, you've definitely got an advantage here. Way to rub it in." His reply had been automatic, unthinking, and he started visibly at the sensation of warm fingers tapping out a rhythm on the back of his hand.

"You don't get it", Dave said softly.

_I do now,_ Karkat thought, hating himself and the birdlike beating of his heart.

_What I don't get is why._

"I know what you're trying to do. Piss off."

"I'm not _trying_ to do anything." _Is that laughter I hear in your voice?_

"I want to watch the sun rise like you said", Karkat snapped. "If you brought me out here only to distract me during the actual thing, I don't see why you couldn't just save yourself the trouble."

"Karkat."

"_What?"_ he tore his eyes away from the sun at last—with a measure of relief that he was not prepared to admit—to find an infuriatingly impish face not three inches away from his own.

_Ah..._

Willing his face not to redden, he closed his eyes against the heat of Dave's gaze, thinking of what would follow, _knowing _what would follow. But there was no kiss, just a gentle pressure on his forehead as the other boy leaned against him, laughing quietly. "I didn't ask you to look at me, Karkat. Go on, go back to watching the sky. It's prettier than I am at this time."

_Gog. Fucking. Dammit._

_I fucking hate you. _Karkat wrenched his eyes open, giving up his struggle with the blush spilling onto his face. They prickled with familiar frustration as he glared at the brightening sun. _I hate you and your blazing eyes and your sun that doesn't blind you and your human teasing._

_I hate the fact that I don't understand..._

"I just wanted to say that, well... I'm glad you've never seen the sun rise before."

_Don't look. Don't look don't look don't fucking look_

"That's because you're a prick", he said levelly into the fiery skies.

"No." The warm on his hand was back, resting calmly over Karkat's fingers now, lacing their heartbeats together. "I get to watch you watch it this way, you see."

_But why me?_

They were on the roof of a nameless ten-story building, their legs dangling over the edge; Karkat thought of the drop to the ground, thought of the mortified red on his own cheeks—red like Dave's eyes—and thought he would jump for two boondollars.

"But you're not going to let me watch this in peace, are you?" he asked quietly, though the sun was well over the horizon now and the colors of the sky had begun to dissolve into a blameless, unrippled blue. _I still don't remember anything._

_Just the surprise that it didn't burn my eyes out..._

_And the red._

_Not the sun, the red of your fucking eyes._

"We can do this again on any other day too", Dave murmured. "Dawns are cheaper than fucking socks in a garage sale." _You'll never let me watch in peace though. You know it._

"_Go back to watching the sky. It's prettier than I am at this time."_

_I'm not so sure of that._

The hand on his tightened slightly and he felt the liquid pulse of Dave's humming heartbeat flow through his arm all the way up to the roots of his hair. "I'll show you the rest of the morning", the human boy was saying meditatively, his voice barely more than a whisper. "The day is pretty enough, sunrise or no. But let's go inside for now, Karkat."

Karkat stole a sideways glance to find a smile playing on the pale lips, a smile that said _Or we could just keep sitting here too, not like I care,_ but the thrum of their hearts in their clasped hands said _Please._

_I think I'd like to go inside too._

_You shine brighter than the sun anyway. Inconsiderate asshole._

He pulled his hand away with a sigh. "Yeah. Let's."

oOo

Now significantly higher in the sky and climbing still, the sun bore down on them, and the heat was intense.

"I take it back", Karkat wheezed into Dave's pillow, very aware of the perspiration blossoming on his bare back and the laughing sun-red eyes that danced over his skin. "You people have the rawest fucking deal of all the universes. Shit's so raw a doctor could probably bring it back to life."

"Well, I won't deny that the heat is a bitch sometimes", Dave conceded; he was lying beside Karkat, propped up on his elbows and—though the troll could not see it—fighting back a grin. "Even if it's an excuse for the less experienced among us to get naked."

"I'm not naked", the young troll growled immediately. Had it been any cooler he would have yanked the blanket up to his neck, but all he could do was kick feebly against the bed, trying to draw attention to his pants. "I'm completely fucking decent. But you're not telling me that that fucking turtleneck is sane clothing for this temperature."

He felt the elbow-shaped depressions in the mattress beside him shift briefly in a shrug, then lift as Dave sat up with a creaking of bedsprings. His eyes rose blearily just in time to see a red and white shirt sail over his head to a far corner of the room.

"There." Dave was bare-chested and smirking and the rivulets of sweat on his skin glistened wetly in the sunlight streaming through the open window. _Goddamn it, it's like having the sun right here._ "If it makes you feel any better."

Karkat tried and failed to muster up some form of irritation; the heat was making his very emotions droop like wilting flowers. "It doesn't", he muttered, flopping onto his back. _The ceiling, it's because I want to look at the ceiling. It has nothing to do with him. It's—_ "So much for you showing me the morning, huh."

"I can still show you something, though." And suddenly a hand was in his hair, turning his head to the side with gentle insistence until he was unable to look anywhere but into the blazing firestorm eyes that all suns would pale before. "Sit up for a moment, will you?"

Karkat obliged grudgingly; sweat rolled off him in streams as he did so and he bit back a groan of frustration. _I can't handle this heat..._

_We're here because Dave wanted to show me the sun, but I can't even bear the feel of it..._

"Close your eyes."

The order was so sudden, so unexpected, that Karkat obeyed without thinking, and this time a soft, unhurried pair of lips did press themselves to his for a trembling moment before pulling away. Something metal-edged and refreshingly cool was then put over his eyes.

"What—"

"Shh. Just open them."

"I'm just asking what you're doing to _my_ face, assho—_oh_." His voice coiled in the back of his throat, then withered.

Dave, who was suddenly several tones darker and looking very tickled, actually winked. "Welcome to Coolkidsville, population: 2."

Karkat raised a hand to his face, feeling his eyes widen at the sight of his now tinted skin. Everything had grown dimmer; _blacker,_ somehow, and yet he could see. "I'm wearing—"

"My shades, yeah", Dave finished. "How does it feel to be less of a dork than usual, Karkat?"

"Unusual", said Karkat with complete honesty. _Is this how you see __all of us,__ all the time? _"It's fucking dark."

_I'm looking through your eyes, aren't I?_

"Correction: shades are the shit. Coolest thing you'll ever wear, for sure." And those infernal hands were back, resting on his shoulders, turning his heat-limp body towards the window before he could begin to process why.

"What are you trying to—" he had expected another interruption, another order, but none came and his sentence died away abruptly as his eyes fell on the view outside.

_Oh..._

"There you go", Dave whispered in his ear. "The morning. Lovely, isn't it?"

Karkat tried to look away from the rays that splashed, rain-like, in puddles of light and shadow among the tall buildings; he tried to look from one sun to another, found that he could not, and nodded numbly.

_Is this what your eyes see?_

"Wanna try looking straight up at the sun?"

A laugh rose up in him, unbreakable and overwhelming. "Thanks", he said shakily, "but I'm good." A pause. "_This_ is good." A longer pause. "Thanks."

_If I'm seeing what you see..._

_Can I see what you see when you look at me, I wonder?_

"I probably look stupid with these on, though", he mumbled, his shyness having caught up to him. He thought he sensed a sudden movement on Dave's part as though the boy had made to take the shades off, but thought better of it.

A comfortable yet strained silence welled between them as Karkat trailed his eyes along every darkened, milk-white cloud in the morning sky, then Dave said, "It doesn't matter, does it? I'm the only one who can see you now."

_But what is that you see?_

_Why me?_

_Why do you look so happy that you're the only one who can see me..?_

The troll felt around on the mattress until he found a hand that, to his immense gratitude, was as sweaty as his; clinging to the little spark of smugness that flared up in him at Dave's twitch of surprise, he held on unthinkingly.

_You're the only one._

"That's the point", he said to the whirling sun. "That's the entire fucking point, idiot."

He could finally look at the boy beside him. There was no trace of a smile on Dave's face as he leaned in, obscuring Karkat's view of completely, pulling him closer—pulling him into body heat and more discomfort and the clean, pure smell of human sweat, pulling him into shaking arms.

And he was kissed again, and again, and again until he forgot about the heat and forgot about the fire without, consumed by the fire within until there was nothing left.

_Is that what you see?_

"But you're right", Dave mumbled into Karkat's sweat-clumped hair at last. "That's why it shouldn't matter." The shades were slid off his face with practised precision and put aside to he knew not where; blinking at the sudden crashing back of colors, he closed his eyes.

"Motherfucker, you got way too serious all of a sudden." The chest pressed against his—with its strange human nipples that he knew were sensitive—rumbled with laughter and the arms around him only tightened. _No point protesting about the heat now, is there?_

Right on cue, Dave said, "The heat's a bitch, but it'll be better in the evening. You can see the sunset, that's really pretty too."

_Oh, at this point I think I've seen everything._

"We can just stay inside until then, if it's too hot for you."

"Actually", Karkat heard himself say, "give me back those shades and we can walk around outside for a bit. I want to see this place."

_You really do shine brighter than the sun anyway._

There were no questions, just a nod against his shoulder and a murmured yes; personally, he was not sure when he would want to let go of the human who held him so tightly, but he knew they had all the time in the world, and dawns were cheaper than fucking socks in a human garage sale, and it was okay because Dave was the only one.

"On second thought..." the words were mouthed against his damp skin with lazy impishness. "Let's stay inside for a while, Karkat."

_Inconsiderate asshole..._

_I'll understand you eventually. I promise._

"Yeah, let's."


	2. Afternoon Pulse

_Afternoon Pulse_

oOo

"Here." Dave's voice was huskier than usual, almost breathless, but all Karkat heard was the dull _thunk_ of his own skull on bark as he was shoved against a tree. Before he could get his breath back to spit out a rebuke—before he could even want to do so—he was being kissed.

The throbbing at the back of his head melted immediately. So did the rest of him.

_Damn it..._

_I can't fall. I can't fall I can't—_

But he was being pulled down anyway; the arms around him, uncaring of the heat and their mingled sweat, tugged insistently downwards until Karkat found his knees buckling. He all but tumbled into a laughing Dave, spluttering and flailing for curses.

"Don't", Dave said the moment Karkat showed signs of struggling against their embrace. "I know it's hot but don't."

_It's not the heat... Goddamn it..._

Foreheads pressed together and their breaths grazing their red faces, Karkat gazed at the human boy's chest with heavy, half-lidded eyes. They'd put their shirts back on before stepping outside, having learned the hard way that dream bubbles could never be made completely private; every single inch of Dave's shirt dripped with sweat now under the memory of his Texan sun, the fabric clinging to his skin like a lover. Karkat allowed himself one covert but fascinated glance at those nipples, which stood out perkily against the white shirt, before closing his eyes as though afraid that Dave would know.

_It's not the sun I'm being burned by..._

"Karkat."

_It's you._

"Karkat." His name was carried on a warm, raspy breath, and swirled against his ear with such intensity that, in spite of the heat, he had to fight down a shiver. _It's you._ This time there was no mistaking what would follow.

_It's you,_ he thought, raising his shaky hands to either side of Dave's face, slipping his fingers into the fine blond hair that had been set alight by the sun. _You..._ Dave with his blazing red eyes and stupid silky hair and ghost-white face and coolkid shades... shades that currently rested on the bridge of Karkat's nose as he leaned in and took the pale, firm lips for his own again.

Why did he have to tremble like this, why when they had all the time they needed and a shady tree above them? Why did his body insist on quivering with impatience when they had nothing to lose by going slow?

Why did he have to gasp so loudly, with such relief, as a long-fingered hand finally slid beneath his sweater? Why did he have to cling to Dave now? _Why?_

"Karkat."

There was no suppressing the shiver this time. "What?" he choked against a bony shoulder.

"Take them off", Dave breathed into Karkat's hair.

He couldn't do this any more. He couldn't think. "Take what off..?"

In one fluid motion, he was pressed flat against the tree again; the heat was on his neck, swirling wetly below his earlobe, humming with satisfaction when a whimper ripped itself from Karkat's throat against his will. "I was going to say the shades", Dave mumbled between nips and kisses, "but fuck it. Take everything off."

The few parts of the troll's face that hadn't fully reddened now joined the rest. "_Wha—"_

But now there were two hands on his skin, roaming leisurely in meaningless patterns over his stomach and chest. The sweaty turtleneck had already risen up, exposing several inches of his torso to Dave's bare eyes; too unsteady to object, Karkat clenched his eyes shut and nodded.

_It's hot, anyway._

The rush of air on his sweat-slick skin, though warm, felt deliriously fresh as he allowed the hands to hoist his sweater over his head and toss it away, yanking the shades with them as they went. Biting back a hiss of satisfaction, some part of mind registered that he was no longer being touched... When he opened his eyes to give Dave an inquiring look, his heart thudded to a halt, then picked up at double pace.

Shirtless and gleaming in the sunshine, Dave winked. "Welcome to Coolkidsville. Population: us."

_Fuck._

"You're way more of a dork than I'll ever be", Karkat tried to say as the taller boy leaned in close, but those hands—those goddamned hands—were circling his wrists now, pinning them above his head, and his voice had absconded. The bark was rough against his hands as he stared numbly into the fiery eyes.

"Karkat."

"Shut up", he didn't say. He couldn't. His lips had been captured again. Above and below the texture of Dave's tongue in his mouth, he felt a hand leave his wrists and reappear lower on his body seconds later; it stroked the length of his torso once, twice, thrice, and then almost absent-mindedly wandered south.

"Karkat", Dave was whispering. Karkat twitched convulsively. Down below, separated from the slender, nimble fingers by his pants, his bulge did the same.

_You said to take everything off, didn't you..._

He did not need to say it; already the button had been undone. He barely had to think to lift his hips as his pants were tugged down to his ankles, then flung away.

_You said._

Karkat tried not to think. He shut his eyes tight again and fought the impulse to reach for his sweater.

"Karkat..."

But Dave was still there and so was the remaining hand that held his wrists in place. He felt lips brush his eyelids in a motion that was at once soft and urgent; forcing his eyes open, he was met with a small smile. "No point being shy."

"I'm not being—!" His words fell over one another.

The second hand released his wrists altogether and now he was in bare, lean arms, the lips back at his ear. "Don't be shy. No point being shy. We're done this before."

A single finger began to trail up the inside of his thigh and he gasped.

"You gonna let me in?"

The voice said _It's not like I care. _The thumping chest pressed against his own said _Please._

_Why do you sound so afraid... Like I'd say no now... Like I could ever say no..._

_We fought the green sun, and now I've been captured by a red one._

"Yeah", he whispered, as the finger reached its destination; he slumped against the crook of Dave's neck, allowing the touch to become an entire fire-skinned hand that gently began easing his legs apart.

And at some point the human boy's pants had come off and Karkat could feel it now, feel the soft, afternoon-kissed dusting of hair on the pale thighs that sat between his own. Feel the trembling of his lover's body resonating with the mad, mad thumping of his heart, feel the hardness of the strange human bulge throbbing softly against his own groin.

_Dave._

"Dave", he murmured without thinking, his eyes still half-shut, tasting the name on his tongue with a meditative yearning. The arms around him tightened. "Sup, buddy?"

_We're fucking outdoors under a tree in what you'd call broad daylight and you ask me what's up. _"You tell me", Karkat said wryly. He _hoped_ it was wry, at least; he could barely hear his voice over the heartbeat in his ears and their short, ragged breaths.

"Well, I'd tell you that showing makes a better case for itself", Dave panted, and Karkat sensed his whole body twitch as that pulsing hardness began to slide, first against, then into him.

He wanted to swear as he clung to the blond's shaking torso, red flowers blooming and exploding and wilting over the darkness of his eyelids in time to the bulge inside. He wanted to curse, to give in to his initial reflex and struggle, to spit out anything vile that he could think of... But he was no longer capable of thinking. The gentle prickling grass and the bite of the tree bark on his back, the pulsating length of muscle buried deep in his nook, the heart and head that spun with his own; they had all become the same thing. They were all Dave, and the only word that crossed his lips, over and over, was Dave's name.

"Karkat—"

"Move!" Karkat gasped helplessly.

And Dave moved. The troll was pressed into the tree once more as the hips he was straddling moved away, then slammed forward again; again and again he was speared, the world fraying and reforming and dissolving with each wild thrust, his own bulge keening with delight and need and desperation and he knew not what because he knew nothing any more save the bucking of Dave's hips, and the arms around him, and the faint moan of his name floating around them with the liquid heat of the sun.

Was he moaning too? Was he begging for the boy to move even faster, crying out as his order was obeyed with something akin to ferocity? Karkat could not know; his senses had ceased to exist and yet, at the same time, took over everything else within this universe and without.

He was only sure of Dave now.

Dave with his hair like a fiery phoenix and white-hot skin, Dave who shone brighter and hotter than any sun in any universe, Dave and his infinitely red eyes that he hid behind his shades—_not to save his eyes from the sun,_ a thought flew up in Karkat's fragmented mind like ash from a hearth, _but to save the sun from his gaze._ Dave and the way he moved, the way he _burned_, the way he pulled Karkat into the dancing red flames of his love and searing emotion until the _world_ was burning

The world was red

_Red, _laughing leaping tongues of red and the raspy heat of Dave's breath in his ear, gasping _Karkat, Karkat I can't—I can't keep—_

"Dave—"

_I'm burning_

It was no use. He had nothing left to fight it with. His limbs tensed and spasmed once, twice, thrice; the red fire within him seemed to spurt out all at once, pooling in the crooks of his splayed body as his mind began drifting, feather-like, into descent.

High above him, a last strangled moan wafted down; a heartbeat rode out of rhythm and a molten haze burst inside him, wringing out a hoarse cry from Karkat's unsuspecting throat. He had gained enough control over his lips to keep from whimpering as Dave collapsed against him and the softening muscle slid out of its own accord.

The prospect of staying like that, surrounded by a feeble yet vehement embrace and panting, almost laughing breaths, sticky with their cum and the sweat that they had multiplied tenfold, seemed overwhelmingly attractive; so much so that when Dave made to shift around a little, Karkat found himself mewling in protest, too far gone to feel embarrassed. _Too far gone to feel anything but clingy and desperately needy._

_I'm hopeless. We're hopeless. I'm being burned by the sun._

"Dude, I just wanna get us cleaned up." Dave's voice was heavy with exhaustion, but an undercurrent of laughter rippled underneath his words nonetheless. It seemed to fade away as the boy added, "But look at you."

Karkat forced his eyes open with some effort and was greeted by a face that, despite its flush of exertion and tear stains, was uncharacteristically serious. "What?" he asked numbly.

Dave held the young troll's bleary, uncomprehending gaze for another moment before looking away. "I've made a mess of you."

_What else could you have done? You burned me._

"You're far from dapper yourself at the moment, pajama boy", Karkat growled tetchily.

"Stupid..." His eyes worked faster than his foggy mind, fluttering shut the moment he felt the brush of lips against his still open mouth, even as his questions raged away. "I mean I like it. You look lovely when you're a mess."

Ignoring the flare of color in his cheeks, Karkat mumbled against Dave's neck, "You say shit like that but apparently _I'm_ the stupid one?"

"Yeah", Dave whispered in a reddened ear. "You're the stupid one. I'm the dork. Welcome to Coolkidsville, Karkat."

"Nobody in Coolkidsville is cool at all", Karkat muttered. The giggle rising in his throat both horrified and delighted him. "They just wear stupid shades and think they're the shit because people can't look into their eyes. I want out."

_They burn me inside and out and the world is red._

A thumb ghosted over each of his eyelids, seeking entrance; he looked into Dave's face again and was relieved to see a smile there. "You can see me though, can't you?"

"Yeah", Karkat said quietly. "I can."

"Am I cool?"

_You are a raging fire. You are sunrise and noonshine and sunset._ Karkat felt his own smile peer out, and was glad.

"You are."

_We can watch the sunset too,_ he thought before succumbing to Dave's lips again in the whirling firestorm that he would never tire of, ever. _We can burn together under the Earth's sky and meld together in the darkness of the night. Then we can watch the sun come up again._

He was ready to spend forever like this, melting, catching fire, watching the colors of the world spin around the sun—_the sun in my arms? The sun in the sky?—_coming back, always, to a never-ending red.

oOo

**Um. u_u; It's been a while since I tried to write sexytimes and I'm not sure how well this has turned out, so... I'd love a review or something telling me if there's anything I've messed up~ :***


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